NOTES ON BERNIE

Sweetpea is a Porcupine

Sweetpea is my dove. He was hatched from a pair of ringneck doves I was given by a lady that kept them in a very small cage for 3 years, not allowing them to lay eggs, just existing day after day…I took them because she did not want them anymore, perhaps she never did.

I often get myself into this kind of situation because I love birds, especially doves and pigeons so when I learned about this pair of doves, how they had been so mistreated for so long, I jumped at the chance to rescue them.

Sweetpea is a “double silky” often called

a “porcupine”….but Sweetpea thinks he

is a “flower”. Perhaps he is!

My new pair of white ringnecks seemed to like their new home with me; ample room in their cage, nesting box, fresh food and water daily, baths every 3 days, life was good. I did notice however that both the female and male had feathers that did not seem to match the look of normal feathers. Their feathers were frilly at the edges, sort of fuzzy-frilly looking. This feather situation gave both birds great difficulty when trying to fly. Two or three feet was the maximum distance they could fly. I thought at the time that the condition was caused by the years they lived in a very tiny cage, and that the feathers would probably develop into normal feathers in due time. I was wrong. The condition remained.

Sweetpea in the morning…
His favorite time of day.

The sun filtering through
Sweetpea’s eyes and feathers

Sweetpea warming himself under
the lamp, after a bath.

After a few weeks they began setting on two small white eggs in the nest box. The hen would set on the eggs from 4 PM until 10 AM, the cock from 10 AM to 4 PM, which is normal for doves and pigeons. They seemed very happy.

Later, the two eggs hatched, one normal looking baby, and one very tiny baby. The parents ignored the tiny guy, giving all the attention and food to the larger baby. The tiny little guy was Sweetpea.

It was very difficult for me to watch the tiny little dove just lay in the nest, starving and being ignored. He would surly die before long so I decided to rescue him, a decision I sometimes question to this day.

Sweetpea survived my clumsy had feeding attempts, and over the days and weeks to come he grew and learned to eat for himself. But there were problems with his development, problems that I learned later to be birth defects passed on from his parents.

Sweetpea’s parents were certainly ring necks, but they were also called “silkies” because of the feather condition I mentioned earlier. Silkies are found in doves and some pigeons, a condition produced from the genes where the feathers do not develop

properly and present problems for them with flight. Silkies are extremely tame, probably due to their inability to fly. They are charming birds and I can see no other problems health wise except the difficulty with flight.

So the real problem with Sweetpea, his parents being silkies, he is known as a “double silky”. This does present some real problems for Sweetpea, and any other off-spring derived from a pair of silkies.

Sweetpea’s feathers are not developed, he cannot fly. He could be mentally underdeveloped because he will not become hand tame like his parents. “Porcupine” is the name given to a double silky, a bird who comes from two silky parents.

My reason for going into the condition of a “double silky” is that this information may save someone else from this happening to them. It is rare to find silkies, even rarer to find a mated pair of silkies. When this happens, the off-spring will not be capable of a normal life, flying, mating, and so on.

But Sweetpea continues to survive here with me in the house; he even takes baths when I place him into the water.

What can I say…it’s hard not
to love this bird.

I think he loves me, but it is difficult to tell. He does not show much emotion. He is not normal, but he is alive and doing OK with my help. I love Sweetpea very much; he is my little “Porcupine”.

Carl Gulledge
July, 2001

Sweetpea is a “double silky” often called a “porcupine”….but Sweetpea thinks he is a “flower”. Perhaps he is!